Jadugar Anand is the biggest name amongst Magicians of India

Jadugar Anand is the biggest name amongst Magicians of India. The largest troop with the biggest infrastructure, and maximum success. One of the only few magic shows in India, who travel on constant basis, performing eleven months a year. No other magician can match the lightings, stage set-up, illusion size and presentation. The only Indian Magician who has performed successfully in almost every city of India from North to South, with an amazing success, which remains a dream for any other magician. Jadugar Anand is the most trusted and revered name in the Magic Field of India. Along with his son Akash, Jadugar Anand's show is a perfect blend of Illusion show and Escapology. Jadugar Anand is certainly the No.1 Magician of India. What is magic? It is a pleasing and amusing art of skill and practice where the laws of nature are seemingly set aside for the sake of innocent entertainment", says magician, Jadugar Anand a world famous magician. To make arrangements for his debut appearance in Colombo, he says, he must have at least 40 shows on twenty consecutive days, at two shows per day; but lack of infrastructural facilities is a frustrating road block. "I went to the BMICH and asked them whether I could book their main hall for twenty days but it was not possible for them to give it for more than four consecutive days. "I will try to find some other venue", he laments.You ask him why he wants the same venue, and he spells out the reasons. "I have six managers and 90 artistes. I also have five container loads of equipment, and moving this equipment from one venue to another would be a huge problem," he explains.One would not be faulted for coupling Jadugar Anand's name without Harry Houdini's, who is one of the world's greatest magicians. For not only has Anand beaten Houdini's record of 'escape from the box in the sea', he has also three world records under his belt.In the 'escape from the box in sea,' Anand's hands were manacled and legs were bound, and he was immersed into the sea and asked to escape. Houdini took 6 minutes.P. C. Sorkar, renowned for his great Indian rope trick broke Houdini's record and escaped in 90 seconds. But Anand escaped in a mere 40 seconds, creating a new record.When this writer was interviewing him at his Kollupitiya hotel suite, we were constantly interrupted as local magicians who had heard of his presence in Colombo, walked in and offered sheafs of betel leaves and worshipped him and expressed their respect for this great magician. Anand is one of India's national treasures and has been the National President of India's Magic Federation for the last nine years.Magic is a pleasing entertainment, but among many people there is a wrong notion that magic is to entertain children. That is wrong. I love an audience who wants to probe every act and find out the secrets of how an act could be possible. I would love to teach anybody the secrets, if they are willing to learn and practice.Speed, practice and ability to divert the mind in a different direction are the secrets, says Anand who demonstrates by stretching out his left hand, and explaining that the audience would be concentrating on his left hand and thus fail to observe what his right hand was doing, where the so called magic is really performed.If one has to be a perfect magician he has to learn meditation and hypnotism. Some performances are carried out after hypnotising the subject. Some acts like making a subject to raise in the air without any support could be done only through hypnotism, he says.According to Anand in India stage plays are a flop, and people are glued to the TV or prefer the movies, but magic shows, he says still continue to attract large crowds.This is so not only in India, but all over the world. Indian magicians, he adds had earned over a million dollars last year alone.He says his projected first show in Sri Lanka, which he hopes to have before the end of the year, probably in August, would be entirely for the benefit of the tsunami victims in this country.There is an academy for magicians run by Anand in India where his students study and practice. But keep in mind studying alone won't help. Regular practice is what would make a student perfect; he points out.The art of performance and misdirecting the audience makes magic very deceptive. But to Anand it is a thrilling and interesting profession and certainly no cakewalk. It is team work with around 90 people who are involved in making the show a hit.They take up various responsibilities and the success of the show depends on their coordination. It is like a mega film production and involves the selection of the venue, publicity, ticket sales, stage designing, lights, costumes and so on, he says, adding that once the show starts, there has to be a minimum break between any two items. All this is taken care of by a well planned and precise team. But all the sweat and struggle, tension and toil is forgotten, the moment he hears the applause of the crowd. That is a very satisfying reward and it truly makes our day, he says.Asked why he meditates, he says that it is very important to sustain the interest level for every show. If he were to lose interest in the performance, the audience would sense it immediately and lose interest in watching the show. Therefore it is important to remain motivated and charged for each performance, and this is where the meditation part of it comes.He shows some video clippings termed 'mayalok'. They are amazing and enthralling, and somewhat like challenging nature when a girl is placed inside a box, her hands in one place, legs somewhere else, and the head swinging up and down the length of her body. In another performance, where gravity seems of no consequence, he raises a girl up in the air without any support and makes her vanish in to thin air.Beautiful girls swing in the air, revolve in the air, and float in the air. In another show he calls a she-elephant to walk to the stage and makes her vanish bewildering the audience. Why a she-elephant, you ask?. Because as he explained, once, when a male was invited to the stage it was in musk. One could imagine how he would have looked. After this incident which sent ripples of laughter in the audience, Anand decided to stick only to female elephants, whom he calls 'my girl friend'.Anand's 26,000 shows are now being enumerated by the Guinness Book of Records. It is a big task for the authorities to trace the records of the 26,000 shows. And another record is riding a motorbike blindfolded from Indore to Bhopal, a distance of 200 KM in 210 minutes. Anand hails from Jabalpur in Madyapradesh, India, and urges the authorities to include magic as a subject in the university curriculum to save this dying art.